InfoWorld Peter Waynerhttps://www.infoworld.com
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796288Tiny clouds taking on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Mon, 02 Sep 2019 03:00:00 -0700Peter WaynerPeter WaynerClouds have to be big, right? If the best feature of the cloud is that you can just click and start up a machine in seconds, it follows that there must be vast warehouses loaded with computers out there somewhere. Huge warehouses filled with tall racks of machines arranged in endless rows, like a modern digital version of the ending of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

]]>(Insider Story)https://www.infoworld.com/article/3435096/tiny-clouds-taking-on-aws-microsoft-azure-and-google-cloud.html
IDG Insider8 dark secrets of cloud hardwareMon, 05 Aug 2019 03:00:00 -0700Peter WaynerPeter WaynerLong ago, a server was something that was yours and yours alone. You and your team would scrutinize the specs, collect bids, fill out a purchase order, and then take delivery on the machine so it could be carefully installed and tested in the server room just down the hall from your desk. You and your team could walk over, touch it, check that the LED was burning bright, and feel secure listening to the quiet hum of the fan. You might even polish the front panel with a shirt sleeve.

Everyone is learning to write software these days. That means every school, MOOC, and training site needs to embrace a first language for the young Padawans. Some places, like fusty Harvard, still cling to the 70’s era C, but many schools are oscillating between JavaScript, Python, and Java. One is buried in every browser, one is the clean choice of the social sciences, and one is the type-rich preference of more mathematically-minded folks.

Is one the best choice? Is one clearly better than the others? Or are they all equally likely to send a substantial number of students screaming into their pillows at night? Let’s examine the best reasons to learn Java, Python, or JavaScript.

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Static site generator pros and consMon, 03 Jun 2019 03:00:00 -0700Peter WaynerPeter WaynerA long time ago in an Internet far, far away, people built their websites by hand, placing every HTML tag with the loving care of an artisan. They spent the day pondering questions like, “Should I use a <b> or go all the way with a <flash> tag?”

]]>(Insider Story)https://www.infoworld.com/article/3399556/static-site-generator-pros-and-cons.html
IDG Insider10 best toolkits for blockchain programming Mon, 20 May 2019 03:00:00 -0700Peter WaynerPeter WaynerMuch of the energy and excitement in the world of the blockchain has focused on the cryptocurrencies, their skyrocketing valuations, and their astonishing collapses. Most of the enterprise world has sat quietly on the sidelines, popping some corn and settling back to enjoy the show.

It’s a classic Hollywood plot: the battle between two old friends who went separate ways. Often the friction begins when one pal sparks an interest in what had always been the other pal’s unspoken domain. In the programming language version of this movie, it’s the introduction of Node.js that turns the buddy flick into a grudge match: PHP and JavaScript, two partners who once ruled the internet together but now duke it out for the mind share of developers.

In the old days, the partnership was simple. JavaScript handled little details on the browser, while PHP managed all the server-side tasks between port 80 and MySQL. It was a happy union that continues to support many crucial parts of the internet. Between WordPress, Drupal, and Facebook, people can hardly go a minute on the web without running into PHP.

In the history of computing, 1995 was a crazy time. First Java appeared, then close on its heels came JavaScript. The names made them seem like conjoined twins newly detached, but they couldn’t be more different. One of them is compiled and statically typed; the other interpreted and dynamically typed. That’s only the beginning of the technical differences between these two wildly distinct languages that have since shifted onto a collision course of sorts, thanks to Node.js.

If you’re old enough to have been around back then, you might remember Java’s early, epic peak. It left the labs, and its hype meter pinned. Everyone saw it as a revolution that would stop at nothing less than a total takeover of computing. That prediction ended up being only partially correct. Today, Java dominates Android phones, enterprise computing, and some embedded worlds like Blu-ray disks.

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CI/CD your way: 11 on-prem options for continuous integration and deliveryMon, 11 Mar 2019 03:00:00 -0700Peter WaynerPeter WaynerWhen a team develops software together, the need for continuous integration (CI)—and often continuous delivery (CD) as well—is rarely debated. The central continuous integration server acts like a referee and a quality control manager by constantly building and rebuilding the software before testing and retesting it. The sooner the CI server finds problems, the sooner they can be fixed.

]]>(Insider Story)https://www.infoworld.com/article/3345968/cicd-your-way-11-on-prem-options-for-continuous-integration-and-delivery.html
IDG InsiderCI/CD as a service: 10 tools for continuous integration and delivery in the cloudMon, 18 Feb 2019 03:00:00 -0800Peter WaynerPeter WaynerThe cloud and continuous integration (CI) are a natural match. While the cloud frees us from the pain of installing and maintaining physical servers, continuous integration automates away much of the pain of building, testing, and deploying our code. If both aim to take work off the shoulders of development teams, it only makes sense to combine them and eliminate even more drudgery with one step.

CodeShip

]]>(Insider Story)https://www.infoworld.com/article/3341320/cicd-as-a-service-10-tools-for-continuous-integration-and-delivery-in-the-cloud.html
IDG InsiderInfoWorld’s 2019 Technology of the Year Award winnersWed, 30 Jan 2019 03:00:00 -0800James Borck,
Martin Heller,
Andrew C. Oliver,
Ian Pointer,
Peter Wayner,
Serdar YegulalpJames Borck,
Martin Heller,
Andrew C. Oliver,
Ian Pointer,
Peter Wayner,
Serdar YegulalpInfoWorld editors and reviewers recognize the year’s best software development, cloud computing, big data analytics, and machine learning toolshttps://www.idginsiderpro.com/article/3336072/infoworlds-2019-technology-of-the-year-award-winners.html
18 Node.js and JavaScript libraries for fast and simple microservicesMon, 21 Jan 2019 03:00:00 -0800Peter WaynerPeter WaynerLong ago in the early days of the Internet, pointing your browser at a URL meant your machine would start up a conversation with one server, and only one—the one connected with that URL. That may still happen if you visit a personal blog, but today all of the major websites and most of the small ones are really constellations of servers, sometimes dozens, sometimes hundreds, and sometimes even thousands.

]]>(Insider Story)https://www.infoworld.com/article/3333000/18-nodejs-and-javascript-libraries-for-fast-and-simple-microservices.html
IDG Insider13 Java frameworks for rock-solid microservicesWed, 02 Jan 2019 03:00:00 -0800Peter WaynerPeter WaynerIt’s been a long trip for Java, a language that began as the lingua franca for the box on top of the television set in the days when TVs didn’t come with Roku or Chromecast built-in. Then Java was going to own the World Wide Web by animating the browser before JavaScript came along and elbowed it out of the way.

]]>(Insider Story)https://www.infoworld.com/article/3329944/13-java-frameworks-for-rock-solid-microservices.html
IDG Insider21 Go language projects for mastering microservicesMon, 10 Dec 2018 03:00:00 -0800Peter WaynerPeter WaynerWhen a team of Google coders looked out across the collection of computer languages in 2007, they saw hundreds of perfectly good tools for writing software but none that offered the right features for Google. That is, a language that supported building the Google vision of a galaxy of software packages working together in Google’s vast collection of servers.

]]>(Insider Story)https://www.infoworld.com/article/3326530/21-go-language-projects-for-mastering-microservices.html
IDG Insider11 ways AWS beats Azure and Google CloudMon, 26 Nov 2018 03:00:00 -0800Peter WaynerPeter WaynerAmazon is the dominant cloud platform for a reason: It has built out so many products and services that it’s impossible to begin to discuss them in a single article or even a book. Many of them were amazing innovations when they first appeared and the hits keep coming. Every year Amazon adds new tools that make it harder and harder to justify keeping those old boxes pumping out heat and overstressing the air conditioner in the server room down the hall.

]]>(Insider Story)https://www.infoworld.com/article/3321176/11-ways-aws-beats-azure-and-google-cloud.html
IDG Insider12 ways the Azure cloud beats AWSMon, 12 Nov 2018 03:00:00 -0800Peter WaynerPeter WaynerAmazon Web Services is an amazing constellation of products, but it’s far from the only game in the cloud world. Microsoft realized long ago that the future of enterprise computing lies in the cloud and it has been investing heavily in owning a piece of this market. The number of products sitting under the Azure brand umbrella continues to grow and it has become hard to find something that Azure can’t do. In many cases, Azure is running right alongside the other cloud providers and in a few of the corners it’s inching into the lead.